I've just had an artistic crisis, thinking my new album was crap. So far I have never done an album without sometime during recording thinking that it's rubbish. This even happen numerous times during production. And now it happened again.
But then I threw two songs away and reworked two songs I didn't otherwise believe in, and then it worked. Once again the flow of the album feels right.
And then I began thinking about the irony, that I use one of the most advanced digital music workstations to create something that sounds like it was recorded in the seventies...

The virtual rack with Hammond, Leslie and Echorec.

A beautiful 12-string guitar has found its way into the recording sessions. I've allways loved the sound of the 12-string being strummed, but uptil now I have never used one nor owned one. But I thought it would fit the sound of the new album perfectly, so I approached my friend Mr. Schønning, and to my surprise he gave me his.
It sounds fantastic!

The 12 new strings.

Yesterday Jesper, Edith and I visited Anne Sprogøe and her radio show 'Under Bruseren' to talk about 'The Dual Resonance Model'.

Edith, Jesper, Anne and me

If you missed it, you can find the podcast right here (it's in danish and we talk so much, that I don't care to translate):

Edith and her tea during the interview

Today is the release date of 'The Dual Resonance Model', a collaborative soundscape by Jesper H. Petersen, Edith Fabritius Tvede and me.

It is available through the iTunes store

A collaboration with Jesper H. Petersen and Edith Fabritius Tvede. Out October 10th 2011 on digital platforms.

There's an ancient mathematical concept that describes the movements of heavenly bodies as 'music of the spheres'. Or musica universals if you prefer the latin phrase. Astrology and later astronomy seems to be one of the things that has intrigued mankind throughout the ages. The concept has of course inspired a lot of musicians, who have written works entitled 'music of the spheres'. Among these composers are the likes of Rued Langgaard and Mike Oldfield. These artists have only been inspired by the title of the concept, and doesn't really deal with the planetary movements or the actual sounds of space.
In space there's no aural sound because of the lack of matter. However the various objects and phenomenas of both near and deep space does emit electromagnetic radiation. And this can very easily be transformed into aural sound using a vlf receiver - a radio.
Such recordings would be genue music of the spheres. Recordings of real music of the spheres can be found on the internet and on a series of compact discs created by NASA and based on recordings made by the Voyager probe.
On the other hand french composer Pierre Schaeffer defined the dividing line between noise and music as 'intention'. And those electromagnetic rays can't have been emitted with intent (unless you believe it has).
What Jesper and I have been trying to do with this piece of ambience, is to add musical intent to those vlf noises.
And thus creating Musica Universalis - Music of the Spheres.

So, the first concert is done!

Me during 'Blue Sky Cafe'

Setlist:
Where are you now?
Sleepwalking
The Glow and its Shadow
Maleficence
Euphoria
The Trench
Blue Sky Café
Parcel
The Jackdaw
Cloudberries

Encore:
The Noise
Garden of Exile

A view:

Anders and Jesper during 'The Trench'

Anders, Tanja and Jesper during 'Cloudberries'

Anders and Jesper during 'The Noise'

Full band. From left to right; Me, Anders, Tanja, Jesper and David - 'Garden of Exile'

With less than a week to go before my debut concert, I thought I'd introduce the band:

Tanja will be resposible for most vocals during the show. If she's not singing, Anders will.

Anders will provide both vocal performances and guitars.

David is going to hit those drums so hard you won't believe it.

Jesper is making sure the bottom end is groovy.

And Me, I'll be making bleeps and squeeks on vocoder and other electronic devices.

The concert is getting close, and there's still a lot of work to do. Today I finished off the projections that will be played in sync with the music. We still have to try it out in rehersal...
I will not reveal the setlist, but we'll play most of 'Anyway' (but not all), some old songs and a brand new one...

Rehersing 'Maleficence'

Last monday I had the pleasure of being presented to the german radio listeners. This happened when radio host Steffen Thieme played 10 minutes of my music in his radio show 'Sounds of Syn' which is broadcast in the Hamburg area and streamed live on the internet. For the record: Tabula Secundus and Tabula Tertius from Tabula Rasa was played.

Preparations for my first (and so far only) concert is in full swing. I'm currently busy editing the visuals, that will be played during the various songs. I am completely reworking everything, so it won't just be like watching the music videos.
On stage will be a four piece band performing songs from my albums in new arrangements. Everything sounds way more fresh than the studio recordings.

From left to right: Anders, me, David & Jesper

For those interested we will play at the Spejder Festival in the KluBben tent. August 3rd at 00:30

Somebody has spilled coffee on the studio's floor. It's probably me, since I'm the only one in the studio today. And I'm drinking coffee. The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming.

Yeah... it's coffee

Bassplayer Jesper H. Petersen and I went to see Roger Waters perform The Wall at the Danish national stadium, Parken, a few weeks ago. Being a Pink Floyd supporter for decades, it was great to see this piece of work performed live. However, I was quite taken aback by the audience behavior. People all around me was chatting loudly while the music played. I even saw a person standing with his back to the stage, blabbeling to his friends. As the show progressed, mid-aged men with tap beer in one hand and lit cigarettes in the other, played air guitar to all parts. Even those without guitar. This bad audience behavior shaved off at least 30% of the experience. I can see whay Robert Fripp doesn't want to play in Europe anymore.
Unfortunately, I have experienced this kind of behavior before. For instance last time I saw Jean-Michel Jarre and numerous times in movie theaters. Hmm...

Roger Waters at Parken

On another note; I've been busy recording bass and guitar parts, writing lyrics, creating backing tracks for live performances and toying around with the Fairlight CMI iPhone app.... Cute

Screenshot of the Fairlight CMI page D

And the new album is coming along - however a lot slower than expected... Spring 2012 perhaps...

Lately I've spend my time doing mainly two things: writing lyrics and making preparations for concerts.
Let's start with the concerts: I will do small amount of live appearances later this year. Contracts are being negotiated, and I'll post the dates here as soon as they become available.
The lyric writing has once again prooved itself a hard task for me. When I figure out what the songs are about, the lyrics more or less write themselves. It's the finding out what it's about deal that's hard for me.
I had this song that I didn't know what was about, and I wrote a lot of crappy drafts that was going nowhere. It wasn't until I had help of an unexpected kind that I knew what it was about. I heard some really strange noises behind the ceiling in my studio, and only after a few days I realised, that a couple of jackdaws had moved in at the attic.

Jackdaws outside the studio

When I knew the song was about the eerie noises in my studio, the lyrics didn't take long to be written.
For the vocals I called my friend Anders. Anders and I first worked together fived years ago, when he sang three songs on my 'Constructions' album. Later I did some soundscapes for his band ZoBug.
Now we're working together again, and I'm very excited by what he's doing. Anders is among the most able musicians I know.


Anders doing vocals for 'The Jackdaw'

Anders is having fun with my main axe

Stina Madelaire joined me in the studio today, to do the vocals for two songs. This is the first time working with Stina since the music video shoot for Euphoria.
The first song we recorded is called 'The Museum' and required some eerie whispered vocals sung very close to the microphone:

Stina whispering vocals for 'The Museum'

'The Museum' is inspired by pictures of how the town of Chernobyl looks today. Very creepy indeed.
The second song we recorded is a much lighter piece called 'Daydream'. As you can see by Stina's waving arms, it is more lively.

Stina waving arms for 'Daydream'

Recording of a fifth album is in full swing. The concept for the new music is to focus on acoustic guitar, acoustic drums and electro mechanical organ. This combination is giving the album a very 70ies feel, and I actually like that. This is a departure - or perhaps a deroute - from the electronic style that have dominated my previous works.

I'm currently focusing on eleven songs, but it's still too early to judge which of them will make it all the way through the process. My attitude towards the tracks changes from day to day; the track I disliked yesterday, I'm excited by today and vice versa. For example there's this track that I'd decided to throw away, because I thought it was below par and didn't fit the rest of the tracks. I decided to check the mix one last time, and then I changed the drums, put some distortion on the bass and added the stringmachine from duch Eminent 310 organ to the corus. The result is that this track, currently known as 'Paraffin', is my favourite...

I don't have a title for the album yet, but the working title is 'Her Secret Garden'. However this will probably change. So far the only album I've done where the working title became the actual title is 'Constructions'. 'Anyway' had several working titles from 'Roads' to 'Archipellago'. So you never know.

I'm hoping to get the recordings done by the end of spring. After that comes mixing... Might this be a summer release? Probably not, as it always takes longer than expected to do an album...

This day today, 10 years ago, I released my debut album 'Odyssey'. This day not only marks the 10th anniversary for 'Odyssey' it also marks my 10th anniversary as recording artist.
Now, a decade later and with four releases (plus collaborations and three experimental and very limited albums) in my discography, I look back and thank heavens I've developed over the years; I've become much more relaxed by the whole recording business.

By the way a colaborative album and a fifth soloalbum are underway… 2011 will be a good year… And a 10th anniversary tour?

Here's some more seasonal music:

After recording 'Santa Baby', Edith Tvede and I did this little cutie. It is a cover of Howard Blake's 'Walking in the Air' from the 1982 animation 'The Snowman' by Raymond Briggs.
When I was a child I saw this film, and the melody has followed me ever since. Edith did not know it, but she does a great version anyway.
The cover features the first recording done with my recently aquired Fernandes Sustainer system. You can tell by the unnaturally long guitar notes.